School of Art, Department of Music and Fay Jones Faculty and Alumni Featured in INVERSE Festival

Faculty and alumni from the University of Arkansas School of Art, part of the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, joined by collaborators in the Department of Music and Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, will participate in the 10th INVERSE Performance Art Festival at the Momentary. 

The festival, running this week, brings together regional and national artists working across movement, sound, design and participatory performance. This year's festivities mark a meaningful moment as U of A faculty and alumni have partnered across the university. 

The festival opens on Dec. 11, with SOUNDER, a pre-party at the Creamery featuring Reilly Dickens-Hoffman and Dirty Dark Place alongside multiple collaborators. 

Festivalgoers can look forward to Maelstrom, a movement- and sound-based performance by Visiting Assistant Professor Erin Ellen Kelly with Studio Art Program Co-Director and Associate Professor Adam Hogan. The work, presented from 8:15 to 8:45 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 13, in the Fermentation Hall, integrates experimental choreography with an original soundscape and cinematography created by Hogan. 

On Sunday, Dec. 14, the Momentary's RØDE House will host The Uncertain Behavior of Clouds, a lecture-performance by Assistant Professor Calista Lyon with collaborators Tui Lyon, School of Art alumnus Drew Nikonowicz and University of Arkansas Instructor of Music Nikola Radan. The work runs from 1 to 4 p.m., with the central performance beginning at 2 p.m., blending research, projection, sound and embodied movement to consider clouds as climatic agents and poetic symbols. 

Later that evening, from 4 to 6 p.m. Dec. 14, School of Art Instructor Danielle Hatch will premiere Our Story Starts With a Tear, a participatory nine-course meal merging performance, ritual, play and emotional exchange. Created with Fayetteville-based Somewhere Studio — founded and directed by Fay Jones Associate Professor Jessica Colangelo and Assistant Professor Charles Sharpless — the work explores motherhood and survival through the teachings of pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott. 

Performers also include Hatch, Heidee Lyn Alsdorf, Jessica Colangelo and Monica Thomas, with sound by Monica Diodati and Dana Idlet; zine contributions by Molly Bess Rector and Katherine Rutter; and culinary design by chefs Ali Cameron and Brandy Barnes. 

"With artists across our colleges, departments and community represented, the 10th INVERSE Festival reminds us that performance is a dynamic bridge between fields and ideas — one that relies on presence, experimentation and gesture to bind us together through collective experience," Hogan said. 

Tickets are available online. Student tickets are offered at a discounted rate of $10. 

INVERSE was co-founded by Crystal Bridges and Momentary Curator of Performance and Artists-in-Residence Cynthia Post Hunt and San Luis Obispo Museum of Art Chief Curator and Director of Education Emma Saperstein. The festival fosters international dialogue around performance and builds community among artists and supporters, offering opportunities for performance work to develop in the region. The annual series began in 2016 and has been warmly received in both Northwest Arkansas and San Luis Obispo, California.